Trying to get by

Nervously fidgeting with the split ends of her chlorine damaged hair Jane stared at the email in front of her, the central cause of the magnitude of conflicting emotions that were currently swirling around within her like a maelstrom.

It was always hard to say goodbye, she didn’t have the sort of personality that could just easily shift from one thing to another. Her sister could and it was one of the things she admired about her, the way she could just cut things from her life that weren’t serving her...if Jane had that ability perhaps she wouldn’t be feeling this way in the first place.

Sipping at her protein laded coffee before her, the one her entire treatment team had her on in a feeble attempt to jumpstart her battered body’s recovery Jane skim-read the table of contents. Pride? A pure sense of accomplishment? Fear? Nerves?

To be completely honest she wasn’t sure how she was meant to feel. Her book as of 10 minutes ago had officially been published and was now for sale both online and in the last standing physical bookstores around the globe. It was both her first and her last autobiography...at least that’s what she thought for now. How would it go down?

Sure she had experienced her ‘ 10 seconds of fame’. She had represented her country proudly. She had successfully completed her duty of being Australia’s swimming ‘golden girl’ bringing home the ‘gold’. Yet, the 3 golden Olympic medals that currently sat propped up proudly on her mantlepiece did nothing to ease the kind of emptiness she felt inside at this prospect.

To put it bluntly, her goal was achieved. 22 years of age and her sole life purpose up until this moment had been accomplished. She had been training brutally since she was 5 and now 17 years later she was finished. Her body pushed beyond its limits by both her own strict standards and her somewhat abusive yet effective coach’s methods.

Great! She won gold! Yay, Australia! Yay for Jane you must be so proud of yourself and what you’ve accomplished at such a young age etc… What had she accomplished...Gold medals? Fame? A malnourished body due to years of hard training and diets that currently had her physical state so worn down that she had to be continuously sipping protein drinks and nibbling at as much calorie-dense food that she could muster?

A fragile mental state that came with knowing her life purpose up until the games had finished...at just 22 years old? While others in her age group were just finishing their degrees and starting their dream careers she was finishing hers...what was she meant to do about that? How was she meant to feel?

Her doctor and treatment team told her to rest and recover. Basically, relax at home and recuperate for at least the next 12 months…’ give your body a chance’ they said.

Her family had agreed with them, of course, her siblings and her friends after observing the impact of swimming on her...both physically, emotionally, and mentally had a different idea.

‘ Tell your story,' be like those athletes that break the star-studded glitz and glam facade of the competitive sports industry and reveal the true grit and grime behind the shiny gold medals, perfect physiques, and beaming smiles.’

‘ Start a blog’    ‘ Write an article.’    ‘ Respond to the journalists that are currently clogging up your inbox.’   ‘ Call back the hundreds of media companies leaving voicemails on the landline.’

So she decided to ignore all their well-meaning suggestions and actually use the High School Diploma she had painstakingly completed as her first accomplishment post-swimming career. She wrote a book, an autobiography to be exact. A collection of thoughts and realities that broke through the shiny advertised faux facade of the glittering world of competitive sports and brought it screeching to a halt...through the pages of a book written by Australia’s latest sports golden girl. The scandal that was going to be stirred up in the coming hours had the same adrenaline rush feeling that pumped through her before a race or particularly arduous training session...this was going to be intense.

Sure enough, the scandal that Jane feared as a result of her first and currently only book stirred up within a few hours. While camera flashes weren’t currently swarming over her doorstep the online chatter had certainly reached new levels...at least from her perspective. She had trained at an incredibly intense level for years to represent her country...for her 15 minutes of fame. She wasn’t a celebrity, she wasn’t used to this level of scrutiny...and she never wanted to be.

She was simply a young Aussie woman from Acova Beach on the central coast of NSW. She may have a passion and talent for swimming, but she was so much more than that. She was a sister, a daughter...a friend, a girlfriend. 

She was brave and strong, witty, and easy to make laugh. Determined and passionate with a stubborn streak that came across mentally and physically. She loved a good movie and junk food night just as much as any other youth...just as she loved pre-dawn ocean swims and surfs with her brother, watching the magnificent watercolour sky burst into streaks of colour as the new day bloomed.

She was more than another medal tally, more than another washed-up Olympian recovering from years of pushing their young bodies to the extreme. She was an author now, she created something. She put her thoughts to paper...she was an artist, a composer. A creative person...who would have thought?

She may not have any fancy degrees or high levels of education. She may not have written a bestseller or a literary work of genius...but she had done it. She had put her emotional state into words. She had transcribed the inner workings of the complexity of the human brain and to her...that was one of the greatest things she could have achieved at that moment. Putting the complex and confusing nature of the human condition into a somewhat relatable format...perhaps...hopefully, she could help others in a similar situation. After all, they were all in this together...they all were just trying to get by.